Near-death experience: Anonymous story

Somewhere over the ocean, as she worried about plane crashes, she wanted to know whether she had really visited the afterlife.

Somewhere over the ocean, as she worried about plane crashes, she wanted to know whether she had really visited the afterlife.

Until that flight to Hawaii, she had never researched her near-death experience, afraid that she would be diagnosed with some sort of mental illness.

Opening a book she had ignored for some time, she began reading about others who, in dying, felt more peace than ever before. Encouraged, she turned to her sister in the next seat and explained what had happened when the blood clot threatened her life.

“Ugh,” her sister responded, rolling her eyes. “I think all you guys are hallucinating.”

Since that exchange in 1990, the woman, now 49, has shared her story with her husband and her priest, but not with friends or even her parents or her teenage children.

The soft-spoken marketing professional asked not to be identified in this story, fearing the reaction from her co-workers at a prominent Columbus company.

For her and many others, near-death experiences can be deeply secret as much as life-changing. Even those who wouldn’t criticize the experiences, many say, could not understand their meaning.

“Over the years, I’ve tried to find the words, but they don’t even come close to describing what I want to say,” the woman said. “It was just the most-beautiful experience in the world.”

She was 24 when she awoke in her parents’ home to excruciating pain throughout her left side, caused by what she later learned was a blood clot in her leg.

At the time, she just knew — somehow — that she was dying. Too weak to call for help, she reached for a nearby sticky note.

Thanks for everything, she wrote in green marker, just before everything faded to black.

As bright light began to fill the room, she found herself looking down at someone lying in the fetal position. Slowly, she realized that the person was her and that, wherever she was, her pain had been replaced by a wonderful feeling, as if arms were wrapped around her.

Thousands of scenes from her life began swirling around her, immersing her so much that she could feel the emotions of people she had helped or hurt at each moment. A greater force that she couldn’t see or hear told her everything she wanted to know, although she can no longer remember it.

Her great-grandparents accompanied her for much of the experience, along with many others she didn’t recognize but knew as loved ones. After a while, when she realized her time with them was ending, she couldn’t understand why she had to leave.

She cries now in remembering her heartbreak in knowing that she would return to a world of pain.

Back in her parents’ house, she regained consciousness, twisted her skin until it felt real, and then cried for help from her family members.

Although she keeps the experience to herself, she gives thanks every day for the extra time. When death comes again, though, she trusts that it won’t involve fear but the feeling of love she already knows.

“It was 100 times more — thousands of times more — than love for your parents or your child,” she said. “Multiply that by I don’t know how many times, that’s what it was like.